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At six-foot-five and 290 pounds, generally speaking, he decides when he can and cannot eavesdrop.

He was listening to his roomie — a jubilant, smiling Anwar Stewart — being interviewed in the victorious Calgary Stampeders locker room after the Stamps had stunned the B.C. Lions to qualify for the 100th Grey Cup game.

Bolden heard the 36-year-old Stewart — playfully tabbed “Uncle Stew” on this, his second trip off the CFL scrap heap — being asked about the elements he has brought to the Stamps, and suddenly there was a sense Bolden wished to add to the conversation.

“Camaraderie” he rumbled in a deep bass voice. Stewart shone. “Camaraderie” repeated an unsmiling Bolden as if repeating a religious incantation.

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Got it. Camaraderie it is.

Sure maybe the Stamps needed some of that in early October when they summoned Stewart out of semi-retirement, but mostly they needed warm bodies. Stewart, coldly released by the Montreal Alouettes in February after 10 stellar seasons, arrived like the cavalry with nine Calgary defensive linemen on the injury list and reinforcement Stevie Baggs about to join them.

The Argonauts and former Als offensive co-ordinator Scott Milanovich had kicked the tires on Stewart too. But he chose Calgary, the CFL team that originally signed him out of the University of Kentucky in 2001 and instead Toronto got treated to the second coming of the Kissing Bandit Adriano Belli.

With Stewart in the harness, the Stamps ran the table the rest of the way and are now in the Grey Cup game. The Als, meanwhile, might have physically replaced Stewart on the D-line but they were surely missing something as they surrendered an eye-popping 530 yards to Ricky Ray, Chad Kackert and Co. and lost the East final.

Stewart had been to eight Grey Cups in 10 years (one with Calgary in ’01 then seven more with the Als), winning four rings. On Tuesday, he’ll fly to Toronto for his ninth Grey Cup appearance, tying the record held by an illustrious group that includes Dave Cutler, John Barrow, Mel Wilson, Larry Highbaugh, Tommy Grant, Hank Ilesic and Angelo Mosca.

“I think I’m gonna change my name to Mr. Grey Cup” said Stewart after Calgary’s 34-29 triumph over the Lions. “I look at how this year went for me from getting cut to getting married to this. It’s been awesome.”

When Stewart was cut by Montreal in February, it was the second time football extinction had stared him down. The first time was a decade earlier when after a rookie season in Calgary and that first Grey Cup visit, Stamps football boss Wally Buono gave him the chop in training camp in favour of a player with NFL experience.

Stewart caught on, however, with Montreal and stayed for 10 seasons, ending up as the team’s all-time sacks leader (66). He was the CFL’s most outstanding defensive player in 2004 and a finalist for that award in 2009.

He took pay cuts along the way and then was released a day before his 36th birthday. His dream of retiring as an Alouette vanished.

“There’s no loyalty. It’s a business” he told the Montreal Gazette. “They use you until they can’t use you no more.”

Oddly, nobody else wanted those eight Grey Cups worth of know-how either. Stewart sat around through the summer months and then past Labour Day. He got married, his new wife got pregnant, he peddled meal-replacement products, he helped Bryan Chiu with the Concordia University football team and he trained just in case.

“It was tough. I had about 100 dreams of hoisting that Grey Cup while I was on the couch” he said. “I had these visions and I continued to train and when things came around I was able to choose where I wanted to go.”

In Calgary, back where he started, he was reunited with former Als teammate Devone Claybrooks, the Stamps defensive line coach.

“Let me come in here and help you guys,” said Stewart recalling his sales pitch. “Let me show you how we do it.”

On Sunday, the Stamps held the Lions’ offence out of the end zone for 59 minutes. Buono, who retired after coaching B.C. to the championship last year, could only watch from his management seat as Stewart — the player he cut a decade earlier — helped keep Travis Lulay in the pocket, where he couldn’t create as many opportunities downfield.

“I came here for a reason,” said Stewart. “Next Sunday we’ll be able to try and make everything I was dreaming come to pass.”

One thing’s for sure. As the old football saying goes, when the big moments come, act like you’ve been there before.

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